Mama's Pizza, St Paul MN

It was a bitter cold Saturday night on the corner of Front and Rice Street in St Paul’s east side. We had never been here before;pulling up outside Mama’s Pizza, but we had heard so many good things from so many locals, including the governor, no less, that we decided it was time. During these days of covid it’s just an order-and-pick-up deal so we’ll have to wait to sit in and soak up the ambience. We resigned ourselves to running in out of the icy dark and warming up while we waited our turn, and the smell of cooking pizza that enveloped us was a welcome bonus on a Winter night.

It’s definitely the cozy kind of place where, under normal circumstances, you could hang out and linger over dinner. Super friendly staff and old-school decor put you right at ease, but that would have to wait for another time. We grabbed our order and headed home, all the while being slowly tortured by the aromas emanating from that flat innocent looking box. Ommigod we gotta get this thing home and dive in….

..which we did in record time, but let me back up. I’m gonna start with one word - cheese. There was lots of it, which is fine by me. It smelled snd looked amazing, melting over that rich red tomato sauce, their mixed aromas filling the house. Oh boy.

i knew this was gonna be good. I also knew it was going to be bad- yes, it’s not exactly health food. I briefly had a vision of a young Freddy Mercury sitting at his piano singing “ Mama’s just killed a man” and wondered if that might have been the original lyric, inspired by a post-gig pizza stop in St Paul maybe?

But enough of such thoughts- it was time to dive in. The crust is pretty thin and firm with a soft crunch. That tomato sauce has really rounded flavors of garlic and Italian seasonings- I’m no expert but it tasted like something that was perfected over years.

Bottom line, I’m looking forward to getting back there sooner rather than later. If you haven’t been there, do yourself a favor: go to Mama’s. Meet the friendly folks working there. Soak up the atmosphere and the smells. Take a pizza home and eat the hell outta that thing. You can thank me later, and apologize to your fitness regime. The diet starts tomorrow, as they say.